The Other New Kid
by Kyetge
Summary: After years since Zim first penetrated Earth's atmosphere, Dib, now a Hi-Skooler, finally gets the biggest break of his life in the form of the one who's just moved into the neighborhood. Dib/OC right now. Ratings will fluctuate. Pic links on profile!...
1. The Other New Kid

O Hai, everyone. It's been a while since I've logged into the site.

Even if you don't wanna know, I'll say it: I spewed this out of the sharp end of my stubby pencil some other day in order to calm my siblings who couldn't access the second season of Invader Zim on Netflix. (This sentence has been changed due to family-enforced censorship.)

Even if you don't want me to say it, I know it: The "Original Character" here is me. You can guess why.

* * *

It had been years since Zim had come to Earth, hell-bent on proving to his superiors that he was able to be of use. Thanks to Dib Membrane, the aspiring paranormal investigator, all he had accomplished was advancing from Middle-Skool to Hi-Skool. Dib strove to keep it that way, unchanged, until he could find a permanent solution to his unearthly problems.

They were halfway through the first semester of sophomore year when another new kid came to town that ended up changing the fates of these two rivals. One particular morning, Dib wore his trademark trench coat to Hi-Skool that day. It was foggy in the morning and he seemed to be at one with his surroundings. But that as only because it was expected to rain later today, so he doubted Zim would show up. But he did, probably due to an incompetent weather forecast alien thing he depended on.

As soon as they made eye contact, it seemed that the rest of the world melted away and all that existed now was the short distance between these two arch nemeses.

Zim's fake eyes turned to hateful slits. "Dib-scum."

Dib, since he had actually grown taller while Zim was not exempt to the laws of puberty on Earth, towered over him. "Zim-freak." He acknowledged the stunted green Irken with a barely-there nod. Over the years, their attitudes had worsened and their mannerisms had combined to become a sort of more common dialect.

"I'll keep an eye on you in Physiology today, Zim," Dib warned his fellow outcast. "Don't even _think_ about doing anything dangerous."

"Don't even think about warning your superior that is ZIM!" cried Zim in response. With that said, the green-skinned, prepubescent-looking boy adjusted what Dib knew to be a wig, and stalked off into the building 20 minutes before the first bell to spite his point.

Dib felt slighted by today's especially brazen act of animosity. However, he smirked at the thought of a melting, shrieking Zim later on. So, using the time he had left, he tried to cram for the pig dissection project that would occur today.

* * *

"Alright, you horrible teenagers. As you have been foretold, the pig dissection is taking place skoolwide today. The only reason we are doing this is because our budget is _doomed_! ...so we have teamed up with that stupid pizza or taco place or something." Ms. Bitters spat. "Do it right, because all pigs we've been given are to be taken back to be turned into food for the _entire city_!"

Due to even more budget cuts, Ms. Bitters had been forced out of retirement and thrust into the position as head of the understaffed Hi-Skool.

Dib raised his hand. "But what if someone who isn't familiar with humans, let alone PIGS, tampers with theirs? We could be talking about a massive E. coli breakout! It could spread something like Angst Swine Virus to the general public. I don't think Zim should be left unsupervised! His middle name is trouble!"

Zim silently thanked Dib for his great idea, but stood up indignantly anyway and puffed out his scrawny little chest. "Zim's middle name is NOT trouble! It's… it's… ah…" he faltered a bit. "It is a NORMAL HUMAN nickname, which has normal human syllables in it, and… whatever…" He petered off, withering under the glare of Ms. Bitters. "That is all." Then he himself shot a poison-filled look at Dib as he sat in his place, which Dib promptly ignored.

Ms. Bitters didn't have any rebuttal for Dib's point, so she continued her rant.

"Adding to our skool woes, the system has dumped another brat into this class. I didn't get the word in time so I wasn't able to tell the board supervisor that there was NO ROOM for anyone else here, which means I'll just take my anger out on you worms as always."

The class did not really respond at all. Keef, maybe, paused in the process of picking his nose, but grunted and continued. Zita followed the path of a fly that had gotten into the room, but the fly was promptly crushed by the cobra-like grip of Ms. Bitters' claws.

Then the acerbic old teacher cocked her head. "The new student…" She skittered to the door inhumanly fast and wrenched it open, revealing a kid who was poised to knock.

"Introduce yourself," she snarled. The class got a better view of this person when she… he?... stepped over the threshold with palpable trepidation.

"Um… hi, dudes and… dudines… I'm Laura. Heh."

* * *

-So how was it?

I'll be working on uploading my fan art that was done independently from the notework. Please encourage/criticize me through reviews. I'm more thick-skinned than before and a bit of a troll so I won't mind flamers pointing out that, as already stated, the character is merely... me.


	2. The Pig Dissection

O hai, it's me again. The updates shouldn't be taking this long, but I forgot how to correctly use the interface for uploading new chapters. :C

So, yeah, anyway... enjoy if you can.

* * *

Ms. Bitters returned to her desk, leaning over to make sure Laura got the message loud and clear. "That's not an introduction! You must include weaknesses so I know how to contain you like these filthy abominations before me. Continue!"

"Damn, alright." Laura looked over the class again, and under the beanie and behind the glasses, her eyes were screaming, 'what the hell?' But then they narrowed into defiance. "I suppose one major weakness is that I'm the new kid. But if anyone messes with me, including figures of authority..." she made eye contact with Ms. Bitters at this point, then returned her glare to the class. "I'm warning you now that I am no pushover, no weakling, and no narrow-minded twit. I happen to excel in grappling, which is the form of wrestling Chuck Norris approves. And I have powerful unearthly connections that will be very happy to repay me for favors left undone."

Dib's ears caught that last part especially well. He seriously wasn't sure what she meant by that.

She looked like she was on the verge of saying something else, but apparently forgot what it was, so Laura looked at Ms. Bitters again. "Where do I sit?"

Ms. Bitters seemed to be chewing on some very nasty choice words. For another moment, it was really tense. Then she just pointed a gnarly finger at the seat that used to be Tak's. The girl half-sauntered to the desk, crossed her arms, and didn't bother to take off her humongous black backpack.

Bitters said a few more words on the pig dissection, about how the company's people would send the pig carcasses soon.

Laura's hand shot up. "Ms. Bitters, will I be allowed to work on this dissection thing with everyone else?"

"No. You never got the notes. Instead, what you will do is create some based on your observations of others' teams. I expect to have a packet of these observations on my table at the end of the day, but I'm not going to be grading them, so they're for your personal disuse. Got it?" she hissed.

"Of course I've got it. As a student who's threatened you with various ideas already, I'd have to get it," she retorted. "I can tell you're not used to tasting your own medicine."

A guy in the back called out, interrupting their little back-and-forth banter. "Um… Ms. Bitters? We don't have our teams!"

"Then make some!" she screeched. Instantaneously, a number of kids got up and moved about the room. They felt no pity for the new one's exclusion when they saw how well she took it.

As always, Zim and Dib were rejected by everyone else. Ms. Bitters made them a team even as they both protested.

"Now you can supervise your insane superstitions," she said to Dib. He forced himself to admit she had a point, but when she left the room to go and haunt some other classroom, he went back to his default state of being.

* * *

The pigs, freshly dead, were delivered to the Skool within the hour. The two stood together but apart, looking down at an enormous mass of pink. They had only been given a scalpel and a bag of strange looking tacks; apparently they couldn't afford gloves.

Laura scanned the classroom. Nobody was going about it right at all. She wasn't sure she wanted to do this anymore. But then a scythe-shaped shock of hair and pea-green skin caught her eye. That team hadn't even started.

She approached the group from the front slowly, hoping halfheartedly they wouldn't look up. But they did. The short green boy didn't look very welcoming. The tall one in the trench coat, surprisingly, did.

"Are you ready to prove your incompetence yet?" Laura asked sarcastically of them. The green one didn't get it.

"We don't have gloves. I know this would be weird any other time, but… might you have any on you?"

"Uh… I'll check my backpack…" She rummaged through all three pockets of her backpack, and then pulled a box out. "I do have some, interestingly. They must have been from the dentist's office…"

"Why do you carry this stuff with you?"

She took out two pairs, eyeing Dib with a subtle curiosity.

"Why is your friend here green?"

"We're not friends!" cried Dib, at the same time that Zim bellowed, "He is not ZIM'S friend!"

"Zim has no friends. He's an alien! Trust me!" Dib added.

"Really? You didn't even give me your name yet. By the way, I'm really bad at remembering new people, but…"

"It's Dib."

"Okay." Laura raised an eyebrow at Zim. "That's a damn weird name. Why _are _you green? Are you a Martian?" she giggled.

"Irken, actually-! …I mean, it's just a skin condition." Zim began twiddling his thumbs, becoming uncomfortable.

"Liar. You've gotten away with that explanation for a while, haven't you? Well, I'm not stupid like everyone else here. Excluding you, uh ...Dib? Right? Yeah. So… I know this assumption to be true because there is no human skin condition, disease, or parasite on this earth capable of making your skin that green!" Laura declared this out loud, projecting her voice so that people turned their heads.

But people weren't the only things that reacted to her voice. A tiny Noize-Activated security camera began recording in her direction, its little red light pulsing on and off, on and off…

Down at desk level, though, they didn't notice.

"I think I'll stick around here with you guys. You seem like you know what you're not doing…"

"The thing is… uh... I'm not a fan of cutting dead pigs up." Dib stalled. Looking at the lump of meat before him tied his stomach into knots, to be honest with himself. He was starting to feel a bit sick due to the fact that they weren't preserved with formaldehyde.

"Well, why don't you take over, Zim?"

Zim stared. He was confused by her word choice, and more than a bit suspicious. "…No…"

Laura shot him a look under her beanie that didn't need to be interpreted. He cringed.

"I really would like to help your team, Dib…" She whispered. "Note-taking isn't fun at all."

Dib, relieved he wouldn't have to touch the carcass, put on the gloves anyway. "Hopefully, there aren't any cameras." he whispered back.

Oh, how their hopes would be dashed.

* * *

Looking good, or what?

I have a picture of Teenage Dib on Photobucket under my account Elaethyr. Ogle at it please.^^


	3. And on the First Day, Too

Yeah! I'm doing it! I'm becoming semi-prolific at keeping my stuff up-to-date! (The new stuff anyway... a computer virus ravaged whatever brainchildren I had remaining before the transition to high-school.)

* * *

Chapter 3

Blood was everywhere.

The room, poorly circulated as it was from the cement walls and security measures, was pregnant with a warm iron tang. It wasn't the good kind either.

Over at the corner of the room farthest from the door, the carcass-thing had a neatly cut T on its belly, as long as Laura's slender arms.

People were complaining about the entire experience, and they had a right to.

"This smells like period blood!" someone remarked on the other side of the room. There were giggles.

"That's because you're opening it from the back," Laura called out. "Turn it around!"

"How do I do that?" the guy asked. "And how would you know anyway? Duh-hyuk."

At this Laura remained quiet. "Philistine." She shook her head in disapproval.

The other kids with at least half a brain followed her advice, and soon, the odor was stronger than before. It gushed into their nostrils like a sentient cloud of... she didn't know what to describe it as.

Kids began to gag. A couple rushed out of the room, only to be electrocuted by the security fields installed to deter truants from sneaking in or out. They, thankfully, blacked out in a heap by the door, unable to smell it anymore. Dib and Zim really began to feel sick now.

"Hah, gross, right?" Laura commented unnecessarily. She smiled at the looks on both their faces. "You guys are so… never mind."

It had been a good idea to roll up her sleeves for this challenge before her: to cut up the monstrous pork-beast and take out its organs. It was difficult work, separating layers and pinning back flaps of skin. Her arms were painted with the darkened color of oxidizing blood, thick as syrup from the fridge units used to transport them, but slowly thinning due to the temperature change. It got in the way of everything, when the formaldehyde preservative was supposed to make it all easier and cleaner and safer.

"The one thing I know I don't carry is hand sanitizer. Never thought I'd need it."

"Humh?" Dib's voice sounded muffled from behind his done-up trench coat, an attempt to filter the stink from the air he breathed.

"_Nada, nada_, just talking to myself."

* * *

Unfortunately, Laura's watch was still on her wrist when she plunged her hands into the lower abdomen of the pig, so she couldn't tell how much time had passed. A part of her told her to hurry, because Ms. Bitters was bound to return soon. But another part told her she really wanted to help these guys out for some reason.

The top part of the pig had already been taken out; now the really dirty work began.

"It's time for the separation of the fecal matter from the intestines! Yay!"

At that point, Dib couldn't take it anymore and retched, the concept about to materialize in real life too close to him. Zim stood to the side, betraying his true nature of idiotry, only paid attention to Dib when he began making those sounds.

"Uh… you wanna take over, Zim?" Laura asked randomly.

"OF COURSE-! I mean, uh…"

"I meant the pig," she explained huffily. "_Chaparro y tonto ademas_."

"No… wha?" Zim didn't know what she just said, but figured out it was an insult.

"That's uh, Spanish for 'short and dumb to boot'. You're in dire need of a foreign language class."

"Zim has no need for any more education! NO NEED!" For emphasis, Zim raised his arms above his head, still only coming to her shoulder, which was a fail effect.

"Why, that just proves to the world that you do. Whatever." Laura didn't feel like carrying this out anymore. Then she noticed that Dib still had his gloves on.

"Dib, please, you have to do this now. I don't want to get caught…" The brunette peeled off her gloves, which turned out to be useless anyway, and laid them down in the small space on the desk surface the pig did not monopolize.

"But… this isn't exactly my area of expertise, or even passion!" He tried stalling for time, but that didn't work on her.

"Ms. Bitters did say you had notes. Just use what you remember! Duh!"

"But, you've already done the rest because you knew what you were doing. Why don't you-?"

"No! No! I'm supposed to be taking note of everyone else failing or something. What if she sees me with these bloody hands? I don't like getting in trouble, even though I was already neck-deep in it before I moved here."

"Oh, that sounds interesting." The young man's face held a pallor that stated how much he hated this.

Before their conversation could carry on any further, Ms Bitters stormed back into the room (and in the process shoving the knocked-out kids from out of the threshold with inhuman strength), materialized in front of Zim, Dib, and Laura, and screeched:

"You _dare_ defy my orders?" Fresh you are, as they say, but meat I will _make of you_!"

* * *

Sounds pretty cool now, eh? x]

I'm sort of improving on punctuality. Should I make a comic from this thing, or what? What do you think?

Review and everything, alright? Identify yourself as individuals from the traffic I'm tracking on this story. That makes me feel a lot better in my brain. :3


	4. Things Start Looking Down and Up

Phew, I have madeth it through.

xD

Why the hell aren't you guys reviewing? Sure, I'll still be updating this, but come on. I need a bit of guidance. You wouldn't believe the kind of process this fanfic has gone through in the hope of publishing it here.

* * *

Chapter 4

The feeling in the class was almost unbearable. Everyone stopped what they were doing, making it the worst stage in the world.

Dib and Zim were unsure of their own fates, but Laura was definitely in deep doo-doo.

In her distress, she facepalmed, aware of that fact, but momentarily forgot about the pig liquid all over her, and stained her face and beanie red. Other students flinched and eye-twitched across the room.

Ms. Bitters also responded that way out of the little human reflexes she had left in her creepy old vessel, but baring her teeth did not add to her appearance.

"Go wash that awful material off your face, new brat. When you return, you're signing yourself up for After-Skool Detention."

The entire class had been staring since Bitters had returned. The thundering silence caused Laura's head to start aching from the inside, so she broke it.

"You evil, feral old bitch. You're worse than a cat lady. And speaking of, there's probably a lady _cat_ somewhere. You'd be perfect for her rattiest collection."

Zim, Dib, and everyone else were in awe of this outburst of hers. In fact, Zim commenced taking notes.

Ms. Bitters, of course, wasn't impressed. She growled a gravelly "Out." and pointed towards the doorway.

The bespectacled, bloodied girl sauntered out, swiping the hall pass from beside the door. Before it closed, everyone managed to get a view of her flipping the bird to their Skool leader.

Zita giggled, but otherwise, nobody dared to breathe or move a muscle.

"Get back to chopping up those pigs!" the teacher ordered, startling some in the audience. Then she, too, stormed out.

The atmosphere exploded with conversation again, but speech could not return to Dib until the blood returned to his face.

Here was another intelligent person, another diamond in the rough, another point against Zim… and because of his nausea or whatever she had ended up becoming blacklisted… He felt only a bit guilty in the beginning, but then his thoughts snowballed into one big heap of anguish for the other new kid that could only be expressed by hand-wringing.

"Zim, I can't do this."

"Hm?" Zim looked up suspiciously.

"Do whatever you want. I don't care anymore."

"Okay." He shrugged, took a loop of intestine from the opening, scrutinized it, and put it back gingerly. He wouldn't be touching it anymore either.

That was fine with both of them, putting Laura's good work to waste.

* * *

Laura didn't reappear for the rest of that class, and her empty seat burned a patch in Dib's peripheral vision.

He didn't even mind the smell when someone gutted their carcass wrong, and the crap spilled near the center of the class so unfortunately it contaminated the entire place. Zim, though, began spasming and moaning, almost in pain about, "Filthy... Hyoomans! Filthy... processes...!"

It took a while for him to recover, and while Dib usually would have laughed cruelly, his mind was in another place.

* * *

At lunch, the girl happened to be back. She seemed subdued and a good bit cleaner compared to the last time anyone had seen her. Her beanie was lower than before, and the fluorescent lights in the ceiling reflected off her glasses, so people could only tell she'd been crying from her reddish nose.

Dib quickly made a beeline for the spot behind her. Laura didn't turn around. He wondered why he was bothered by this – was it the guilt from earlier? Or the fact that she could be seen as a loss to his grand master plans that would take Zim down forever?

The way he saw it, it would be worse not to have her on his team.

"Where is your elbow and where is your hand so I know where to aim my fist?" she suddenly spoke out loud. Then she wheeled around, a scared stance taking over her. "I can feel you breathing on me."

"Uh, I wasn't doing anything… really… I didn't mean to-" he stuttered, backpedaling. "It was an accident, I guess? I don't know. Sorry."

She gave him a weird look, and then received the inedible lunch stuff on a tray – it appeared to be a sorry excuse for breaded bologna with soggy fruitcake on the side. But instead of veering left to enter the maze of tables called the cafeteria, she kept going straight, to the bathrooms.

"Hey, where are you going?" Dib called after her but to no avail. He decided not to pick up any lunch food at all – he never ended up eating it – so instead Dib ditched his tray and caught up to her before she could open the door to the hallway.

"I'm going to the bathroom where all the toilets invited me."

Dib snickered but stopped when he realized she wasn't laughing along.

"That's right, you don't have a clique yet…" he realized, about to feel sorry for her – but he caught himself. At that moment, his neurons started firing together in harmony, and he produced an idea so wonderful that Laura doubted the light in his eyes came from the ceiling.

He began to pace, his scythe-shaped hair bobbing slightly from his frenetic steps on the linoleum floor. Laura leaned on the door, watching him with amusement and curiosity again. She checked the surroundings, wondering if anyone else noticed the unusual activity. Nobody looked up in horror or even surprise – it seemed like an everyday thing to them, but added to the feeling of detachment for Laura.

Dib struggled to get his words right. He continued pacing… "What if… what if I changed the tradition of this Hi-Skool so that new kids got the respect they deserved? Just so you can be accepted at my table? Which will lead to us working together to save humanity from the horrors of outer space? We'll need to begin eliminating the extraterrestrial plague that has already landed here. This means… we can start on ZIM!" He struck a heroic pose, facing the cafeteria and finally catching the attention of the others. From behind, he heard the first giggle to come out of Laura the entire day.

He snapped around. "What?" Dib stated. "What's so funny? Don't you think it's a win-win situation for both of us? We won't be rejects anymore, really…"

"Oh, it's not that, dude. You just…" Laura snorted, struggling to contain herself. "You look like a stork, Dib."

Dib stopped posing immediately and returned to his hunch, twiddling his thumbs sheepishly. "Okay then… moving on…"

"So, where's your table?"

"Right this way. We just have to cut a path through the jocks', the cheerleaders (_This Skool has cheerleaders?_ Laura wondered) and the cool goths' sector. Hopefully the first party doesn't mess with me today." Dib shuddered.

* * *

So yeah. Review and stuff. Gaz's cameo-type thingy is coming up.^^

I'm sure some of you out there are looking forward to that.

REVIEW GODDOMMOT.


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